Position yourself for success

You’ve researched all the players, surveyed your opponents, compiled lists of sleepers, and shined up your horseshoe. You’re all ready for drafting, right? Not quite.

Here’s a question: How will you manage your positions? Where will you spend your money or focus your early picks? What positions will you fill in the endgame?

These are not inconsequential questions. While there’s a lot of flexibility in how you build your roster, understanding how the positions flesh out and how to manage them during the draft can give you an edge. For example, if you’re looking to add stolen bases late in the draft, you’d better keep an OF slot open; in the bottom 50 (based on a 15-team 5x5 league), only two non-OF are projected for 15+ SB.

Let’s just dig in and you’ll see what we mean.

What do we mean?

The table below shows the average stats available, per player and position, for the top 225 hitters according to BaseballHQ. If your league uses more or fewer hitters, you can certainly do this analysis for your particular league (we used a 15-team, mixed, 5x5). Note that the number of hitters doesn’t add up to 225 because of players eligible at multiple positions.

		-----           Average Player           -----
Pos	#	AVG	HR	R	RBI	SB
C	30	.247	18	54	61	2
1B	33	.264	22	73	78	3
2B	31	.263	18	74	64	12
3B	29	.258	21	72	72	9
SS	31	.260	18	75	65	16
OF	94	.257	20	71	66	14
DH	6	.258	27	70	76	6

A few things stand out here. While GMs typically don’t like DH/UT-only players, there are a few who provide serious help in the power categories. Granted, Shohei Ohtani (DH, LA) and Marcell Ozuna (DH, ATL) probably stand out, but if you can get those guys at a reduced price, they’ll deliver. We also note that the corner positions are a good source of Homers and RBI. Want speed? You’re primarily tapping the middle infield or the outfield.

This potentially makes five-category players who aren’t outfielders a bit more interesting. You won’t find many 20/20 guys who aren’t outfielders—only five total (versus eight in the outfield). If you’re aiming for balance, you might target a guy like José Ramírez (3B, CLE) in the first round, since he’s one of the few five-category infielders.

Of course, in the end, it doesn’t matter whether your home runs come from infielders or outfielders. You can load up your infield early and fill in your outfield with late-rounders or $1 players. Or vice versa. However, knowing where the opportunities are for different stats can help assure you don’t clog certain positions that you might need later in the draft in order to hit your targets.

Let’s also look quickly at the number of players at each position available within certain dollar-value ranges. This also helps to understand where in the draft (either round or dollar amount) you can find different positions.

Pos	$30+	$20-$30	$10-20	$5-$10	<$5
C	0	0	5	6	19
1B	2	4	10	15	2
2B	1	4	11	12	3
3B	0	5	10	9	5
SS	1	5	10	12	3
OF	9	7	30	27	21
DH	1	0	3	1	1

 

The endgame

While it’s useful to look at the overall hitter pool, it may be even more important to look at what’s typically going to be available in the endgame. If you’re short on steals, for example, you might not want to fill a position with a power-only player if you’re going to need that position to grab a speed guy later in the draft. With that in mind, let’s take a look a the bottom 50 players in our theoretical hitter pool.

Bottom 50

		----- Average Player -----
Pos	#	AVG	HR	R	RBI	SB
C	19	.238	15	46	54	2
1B	2	.255	14	57	54	3
2B	3	.246	15	55	54	8
3B	5	.249	13	58	54	5
SS	3	.248	9	66	48	11
OF	21	.242	15	55	53	10
DH	1	.237	14	61	55	8

First off, almost 40% of the endgame hitters are catchers, and not all of them are good. In this exercise, we noted that 12 catchers were below replacement level, but would need to be drafted to fill all the spots in a 15-team league. That doesn’t mean you need to reach for a premium catcher, but you’ll want to be careful not to get stuck with a guy who’s too far below replacement.

Outside of catcher and shortstop, the power numbers are pretty close by position. However, there are 21 outfielders here, as opposed to only two or three players at each position in the infield. You may find yourself overpaying (higher pick or more dollars) if you wait too long to fill those positions. In other words, you’re best served by having most infield positions filled by the endgame, with a couple of outfield slots still open. That allows you to pick and choose among players you like instead of taking someone just because he’s your last chance to fill a position.

We’ll note also that steals are limited to three positions, and outfield is one of them. If you’re hoping to shore up your speed late, you really need to have OF slots available.

Let’s go one step further and look at how many players at each position reach certain benchmarks: .250 BA, 20 HR, 110 R+RBI, and 15+ SB.

Benchmarks hit in the bottom 50

Pos	.250+ AVG	20+ HR	110+ R+RBI	15+ SB
C	4	6	6	0
1B	2	0	2	0
2B	1	1	2	0
3B	4	1	4	1
SS	1	0	2	1
OF	7	6	9	5
DH	0	0	1	0

Even at catcher, you can get power or a decent BA in the endgame. However, if you want 20+ HR or 15+ SB, you really need to be able to roster outfielders. Also, keep in mind that it’s either/or here in terms or power and speed. There are no 20/15 players available this late, and only three 15/10 players—Jack Suwinski (OF, PIT), Bo Naylor (C, CLE), and Michael A. Taylor (OF, FA).

Overall, the availability of various stats throughout the draft and in the endgame suggest that holding a couple of OF slots for the endgame will allow you to fill your needs without reaching or overpaying.

Other considerations

The other thing we look at in terms of positions is the free agent pool. Think about picking up players later in the season—there may be a handful of good OF available, and maybe a corner infielder or two, but at catcher and middle infield, pickings are usually quite slim. So, if you lose a good outfielder, you may be able to replace him with someone halfway decent. If you lose a good catcher? Good luck.

We like to build replacements into our draft. We will pay a small (small!) premium for multi-position players, including those who could gain eligibility during the season. In particular, we try to have at least one OF who is also infield eligible, and at least one non-catcher who is eligible at catcher. In 2024, there are very few of the latter, which is why we’ve targeted Henry Davis (OF, PIT) quite a bit in drafts. As long as you don’t pay too much of a premium for him, he’s a guy who can hold up well as an outfielder and should be catcher-eligible by mid-April to mid-May, depending on your league’s rules for in-season eligibility. We also like Luis Rengifo (2B/SS/3B/OF, LAA), for obvious reasons (plus, we think he still has some room to grow as a hitter).

Bottom line

To sum up:

• Pay attention to which positions supply which stats
• Understand where in the draft positions are plentiful or short
• Early IF slots
• Careful at C
• Late OF slots
• Positional flexibility, so you can cover MI/C injuries with OF/CI free agents

These aren’t hard and fast rules. You can certainly field a good team by loading up on outfielders early or by ignoring catchers until the very end. However, if becomes harder to find value and hit your targets that way.

Happy hunting.

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